Her family want me to take her back with an agreed treatment plan, and I guess that's a possibility
redbaron, if you do this, you will turn into the booze police. you will drive yourself nuts trying to monitor her drinking and keep the children safe.
catlovermi is right. you are not the right person to help her right now. think about it, has anything you've done in the past worked? the best people to help her are those who have conquered alcoholism themselves. they understand what she has been through and what she is currently going through.
you did not cause this and you can not cure it. consider praying to your HP for strength, courage and endurance to do the right thing. your job right now is to keep your family safe and sound. from what you have shared, they are not safe with her. this is not your fault.
as for the childhood abuse, i was physically abused as a child and i am not an alcoholic. people are alcoholics because they have a body chemistsry which processes alcohol differently than a normal drinker. they also have a mental obsession with alcohol.
i am sure it is very difficult for you to not run in and rescue your wife. i know to listen to her sobbing and broken is difficult too. if you can't handle it and do your job, then you might want to not speak with her for awhile. do whatever you need to do to keep your ship afloat. she is where she needs to be, with professionals who can help her. i hope you can take some comfort in that, redbaron.
please take care of yourself, redbaron. now is the time to pull in the gangplank and keep those children and yourself out of harm's way. she is in no state of mind to co-parent right now and i personally feel that decisions regarding the children's welfare rest solely on your shoulders. if it was me, i would communicate that to her. in the last analysis, we do not do them any favors by shielding them from the consequences of their drinking; in fact, we enable the disease to further progress.
i'm rooting for you, redbaron and i hope you can get some face-to-face support with a therapist or an alanon group.
as for her family, well, you can't control them but you can encourage them to educate themselves on this disease, as you have done. if they want to take her in and monitor her, that's out of your hands.
hang in there. holding your ground could very well be the wake up call that saves your wife. regardless of that, it will save your family from going down with her.
naive